Minimum wages jobs, like those at fast food places, were originally meant to be entry level positions for young people and those just entering the job market, not career objectives with salaries capable of supporting a family.

It's a much wider ranging problem of our untrained workforce, which are untrained for a variety of reasons, from social to economic.

Drastic changes in minimum wages would not affect the CEOs or big corporations as much as it would drive the small guy out of business, further separating the classes.

Big Business will always survive, they'll just raise the prices that dictate the market.

entry level positions for young people and those just entering the job market

Absolutely true.It was never meant to be a career, but has unfortunately turned out that way.I remember when Richard Branson said that Americans don't want to make shoes on an assembly line. He was right.Now they flip burgers./rambling

"More broadly, consider the ever-widening definition of those whom conservatives consider parasites. Time was when their ire was directed at bums on welfare. But even at the program’s peak, the number of Americans on “welfare” — Aid to Families With Dependent Children — never exceeded about 5 percent of the population. And that program’s far less generous successor, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, reaches less than 2 percent of Americans...... The majority of these programs’ beneficiaries are either children, the elderly or working adults ...."Yeah I agree children and Srs can be such parasites !!

If required to pay $8.50 per hour they will need to fire Tom and Maria and work the others harder.

OR, they can make cutbacks in other areas and/or raise prices a bit to cover costs. You're correct that there are choices to be made, but they don't necessarily have to involve firing people.

Most small guys are on the edge regarding cutbacks etc anyway. The Ma and Pa shops are battling Walmart which can absorb it till the small guy folds.

Experience has taught us that Walmart and the like aren't any more willing to absorb such costs than small businesses.

Don't get me wrong, I am no way blaming small business. The fault lies within the very concept of capitalism in the US that advantages business owners (small and large) over those whom they would employ.

There is, after all, a reason that corporations (including small businesses) can enjoy pretty much every protection and advantage of being a person, yet a person doesn't enjoy the same advantages as a corporation (try writing off your rent as an individual, for example) ...

The system is rigged for businesses employing people, not for people themselves trying to survive ...

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